Upcycled Chopsticks

Here’s a clever idea, home decor items made from upcycled chopsticks! We love sushi, but what happens to those disposable bamboo chopsticks that many restaurants use? Apparently around 100,000 are thrown out every day in Vancouver, B.C. alone. That’s where the idea for ChopValue was born.

These upcycled chopsticks started as a idea from UBC Forestry student Felix Böck. He wondered if disposable chopsticks could be reused to make innovative home decor products. He launched a trial in May 2016, providing used chopstick collection services to interested restaurants in Vancouver. With free weekly or bi-weekly collection, ChopValue immediately started receiving lots of positive feedback and tons of chopsticks to upcycle.

Once collected, the chopsticks are taken to a lab at UBC where they are cleaned, coated in resin and dried in an oven. The upcycled chopsticks are then hot pressed down into square tiles. Over 200 chopsticks go into 1 tile! The tiles are then sawed and assembled into new products.

ChopValue make us think about the lifecycle of chopsticks. Chopsticks come from bamboo harvested in China. To make disposable chopsticks, the bamboo is harvested, treated, dried and then shaped into chopsticks. These chopsticks then get shipped around 8000 kms to be used once in North America. Once used, these chopsticks are normally thrown away within the hour.

We think that it’s worth giving these chopsticks a second life! We especially love the cool wall tiles ChopValue have created from upcycled chopsticks! We support the ChopValue mission to supply high-performance products made out of upcycled chopsticks. Those bamboo chopstick tiles would work well in a home, and be especially cool as tabletops in asian restaurants!